That night, we found a rune warded campsite on a rocky outcropping by the river, a secure campsite to rest at, and I set up camp. That wasn’t a difficult task, my tent, large enough for us both, was self deploying right from my inventory, and the campfire built itself from a kit. I don’t remember ever having camped in the real world, but even I could tell that the real thing was probably not so easy.
I hesitated before telling Illona to put her own sleeping bag next to mine inside the tent, but I had forgotten to buy a second tent for her, and I felt like it would be cruel to force her to sleep outside.
“No funny business,” I warned Illona sternly, but upon seeing her puppy-like demeanor as she held her sleeping bag and waited for me to tell her where to place it, I had caved.
To my relief, Illona didn’t try anything, instead, she seemed happy to just be near me. It seemed as if, having discovered that she could be of use to me on the battlefield, she didn’t feel so desperate to prove her value in my bed. It made me realize that to her, I was her entire world, and she was willing to try to seduce me if she felt that was the only way to convince me not to abandon her. If I built up her self confidence, she wouldn’t feel that way, I thought to myself.
Late that night, or rather, early the next morning, I woke up feeling hot. Illona was wrapped around me like I was her pillow, leg thrown over me, arm gripping my waist, and her head comfortably resting on my breast. I was sleeping in my t-shirt only, so I must have been a passable pillow, even if I was mostly muscle, there was some softness there for her to take advantage of, and she was taking advantage of it, rubbing her face against my bosom and mumbling happily in her sleep.
For a moment, I was angry, then I sighed, how could I be angry with her for what she did in her sleep? If I scolded her, I’d just shatter her fragile self confidence. She was also too puppy dog cute to wake up. Carefully, I slid free and left the tent to spend the rest of the morning alone with my thoughts, sitting on a log near the campfire.
I discovered Femme had replied to my text:
Cool, is your new follower hot? You should teach her all the moves I’ve taught you, so we can have an amazing threesome when I get back on. Trying to reschedule my day tomorrow so I can log in in 4 weeks instead of 6. See you then!
By moves, Femme didn’t mean the various knife techniques she’d demonstrated, she meant the perverse things she’d done to me in bed. Her text made me blush furiously remembering, and then I rubbed the bridge of my nose in consternation. If that suggestion had been an inappropriate joke, it was going to cost Femme dearly. I was going to give her a stern talking to, I thought to myself. But, something told me she wasn't kidding.
Aida was right, Femme would actually be surprised when I told her I wasn’t sleeping with my follower. Players in IF thought of followers as little more than sex toys that could also be used in combat. Damn it, I thought to myself, why am I so different than everyone else, that this really bothered me? I didn’t want other players to think I was sleeping with Illona, as they surely would.
That thought made me pause, well, why not? What did it matter? I wondered. I searched my feelings and realized that what I was feeling towards Illona was maternal. I didn’t want others to think less of her. She felt too childlike, too innocent and naive, despite her appearance as a well developed young woman, she acted like a scared little girl. I wanted to protect her, not abuse her, even if she genuinely seemed to want to sleep with me, I didn’t want to take advantage of her.
I sighed and read the text reply I’d gotten from Chyrel to try to distract myself:
Valued customer, unfortunately, you decided (in the real world) not to wait at our clinic for the problem to be resolved. We give all our customers the option to wait on site or come back the next day. I am happy to announce that your memories have been successfully restored, but we can not give them back to you until such time as you log out. Please stay safe until you return (in the real world) to our clinic.
What I found most interesting in Chyrel’s reply, other than her pinning the blame for the delay on my real world self, was that she wrote it in such a way as to indicate that she saw no distinction between the “me” in-game and the “me” in the real world, talking as if both the real and virtual versions of “me” were the same person. It was an attitude I wasn’t sure I shared.
This real version of “me” was some stranger who would be deciding if he or she wanted to upload my memories and merge the two of us together. If he or she decided against it, we would forever stay apart. That stranger would decide my fate, and to pander to him or her, I was risking my life, in an effort to make my memories more appealing for upload.
I wondered what this stranger was like, and yes, I wandered if they were male or female. I felt like a gay female, but Aida believed I was a man in real life, given the statistics and how I reacted to the idea of strait women playing gay male characters. If I really were a homosexual woman in real life, wouldn’t I have reacted differently? My instinctual revulsion to the idea was a very hetero male response. Given that I was dating a man who was playing a gay female character, there was something very hypocritical in me being repulsed by strait female players playing gay male characters.
These were the thoughts that kept me up all morning until the sun rose and Illona emerged looking sleepy and worried from my tent, only to look relieved upon discovering I hadn’t run off in the middle of the night.
“Good morning,” I told her.
“Hi,” she said, shyly, “Why didn’t you wake me?” she asked.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
I shook my head, “You looked so cute sleep.” I told her.
A sly look crossed her face, “You think I’m cute?” She asked, “Maybe we can bath in the river together today?”
Thinking of Femme and my first time, I blushed furiously, and coughed, “Not that cute,” I told her, then laughed a little on seeing her dejected pout. Illona, for her part, still hadn’t given up on her ambition of seducing me, even if I had resolved to avoid it.
I gave her a quick hug to cheer her up, then we had breakfast together.
Sometime later that afternoon, after a long day spent killing endless waves of wolves, we finally reached Illona’s grandmother’s house. Despite the long marathon of grinding identical feral beasts, I was in a good mood. I’d hit lvl 22 and Illona had also reached level 17. I had enough level points that I could either buy a new spell or improve my Fatal Kiss spell.
I’d chosen the latter, spending level points to lower the cooldown to 15 minutes, which allowed me to use it pretty much once per fight. I’d also converted the spell from “single target only” to “multi-target, damage divided by number of targets”. These changes made the wolf packs much easier to deal with, while not costing as many level points as just “mult-target” would have. An unmodified “multi-target” setting would have let me do enormous damage to entire groups, but have been extremely broken in terms of game balance. The spell creation system seemed to realize that, so it wanted to charge a ton of level points, much more than I had available, before allowing it. I could have maybe pushed the cooldown up to 12 hours to make it affordable, but this compromise seemed better.
Illona’s grandmother lived in a town so small, I am not sure it deserved the name. There were six houses arranged around a large central field, and the neighbors were busy working on that field. They showed no reaction to us when we appeared. I noted that the field had scarecrows in the corners and two boys armed with crossbows watching the sky diligently. Did they have some sort of crow problem, I wondered, but no birds were currently visible.
The largest of the houses was our target, and Illona looked nervous as she approached the wooden door and knocked timidly. Almost immediately, an middle aged, heavy set woman in a leather apron, armed with a massive hammer, opened the door abruptly. She looked old enough to be Illona’s mother, barely pushing forty, but nowhere near old enough to be a grandmother. “Yes?” She asked curtly.
“Grandmother,” Illona said, “I’ve come…”
“Wrong house,” the woman interrupted, closing the door with a bang.
Illona looked stricken as she threw me an embarrassed look. I quirked an eyebrow at her but said nothing. Resolutely, Illona turned back to knock on the door again, harder this time.
The middle aged woman reappeared, “You again?” She asked, sounding surprised. “No one else lives here, and I don’t have any grandchildren, or children for that matter,” the woman explained, frowning, “Are you sure I’m the person you want?” She asked Illona, looking serious.
“Grandmother, stop kidding around,” Illona said plaintively, “you’re embarrassing me in front of my savior, the adventurer, Sarah Longshot.”
I was the one embarrassed to be introduced like that, but Ilona’s grandmother shot me a look, then something like understanding crossed her expression. “Ah, I see,” she said, “right then, this is the gods’ will,” she muttered. “Come inside.”
We did so, finding a neat, well ordered house with a comfortable leather sofa and a lot of wolfskin rugs lining the floors. In fact, most everything seemed made of wolf where possible, including some rather morbid looking wolf skulls being used as candle holders and what looked to be an ashtray. The sofa was made entirely of wolf leather too, I noticed on closer inspection before sitting down.
Illona’s grandmother introduced herself as “Leandra Wolfsbane, pleased to meet you.” she told us.
I thought it odd that she was still pretending not to know Illona, and said as much. “A pleasure, but, do you truly not remember Illona?” I asked.
“Never seen her before, but I saw this on my table this morning,” Leandra explained, handing me a picture album, “so I’m not surprised she thinks I’m her grandmother.”
I examined the picture album, it showed many pictures of Illona, at various stages of growth, doing all sorts of things a child might do, blowing out candles on her cake, playing with toys, hugging Leandra, all while clearly inside this very room, with all its wolf themed furniture.
“Have your memories of this been erased?” I wondered out loud, thinking perhaps this was some bizarre part of the quest. I handed Illona the picture book and she flipped through the images.
Leandra shook her head, “Where would I get a camera? No, the book is a forgery placed by the gods, Illona’s memories are fake, not mine.” She explained.
I frowned, where would she get a camera? It wasn’t something an NPC would have access to. I examined Leandra more closely, causing her name and level to appear:
Leandra Wolfsbane, Lvl 353 Viking (Shield Maiden)
I was impressed, she was by far the highest level NPC I’d seen. What was she doing here, I wondered, and why a Viking, of all things. I knew Vikings were a playable class, that could be played as either sex, but there wasn’t an ocean anywhere near here, just a small river barely large enough to irrigate the fields with. Shouldn’t her class be blacksmith or farmer?
At my confused look, she said, “I used to be an adventurer like you…” she started to explain.
Remembering Emily, I interrupted, “But then you took an arrow to the knee?” I asked politely, to play along with the joke.
Leandra had continued speaking, saying, “but now I’m a wraith.”
“What?” We both said at the same time, for very different reasons.
Seeing Leandra’s angry look, I hurried to explain, “I, um, thought you were going to say that joke, someone had already used it on me so…”
“No, I was going to reveal my painful backstory to you, but you’ve killed the mood.” Leandra said curtly.
“No, please, tell me about it, I’m… I’m a ghost, and I’m worried I might become a wraith myself.”
“Of course you are, otherwise you wouldn’t be here.” Leandra muttered angrily.
“What do you mean? How can a player even have a granddaughter?” I asked, confused.
“I don’t think you’re ready to hear what I have to tell you,” Leandra said, “you wouldn’t understand.”
“I’m really sorry for interrupting you,” I said sincerely, hoping to smooth things over, I was suddenly very curious about her backstory.
“Now you get to wait,” Leandra said mercilessly, “first, tell me why you have brought me this grandchild, and I will consider telling you what you probably should know.”